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Every year, MF and I spend Halloween driving around LA, hording spooky cupcakes. Then we go back to our place, try them all, and pick a winner for the year. (I wait until the following year to post the results because I'm always in a frosting coma immediately following, and quite frankly, who wants to read anything about Halloween after October 31st?)
If you're at all interested in seeing the cupcakes from previous years, you can find them on my old MySpace Blog: 2007, 2006
(My apologies to the two people who still check myspace, but I won't be blogging there anymore now that I Got Kraken!)
The one requirement for this important competition is that the cupcakes need to be Halloween themed. In 2007, MF and I went to a couple places that had perfectly good cupcakes, but without spiders or zombies, they just couldn't be allowed to compete. One of those bakeries was the amazing Vanilla Bake Shop, and I mused about how awesome it would be to be throw them head-to-head with previous Champion, Sweet Lady Jane's, to find out once and for all who had the best cupcake.
I'm happy to say, that very showdown DID in fact occur in 2008! Here's the story:
We visited a record number of bakeries:
VANILLA BEAN
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YUMMY CUPCAKES
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SPRINKLES
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HOTCAKES
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THE FARM
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SWEET LADY JANE'S (2006 Champion)
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and THEE'S BAKERY (2007 Champion)
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Ultimately, we piled-up quite an array of contenders!
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I tested each one...
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Using Ice Tea as a pallet cleanser between tastes.
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It was a tough competition, with all kinds of surprises, not the least of which being that Sprinkles actually held it's own.
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I keep hearing that this high-brow Beverly Hills Cupcakery is over-hyped, expensive, and not much to text home about, but on Halloween day, they actually turned in a good cupcake.
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However, (as expected,) it ultimately came down to 2 cupcakes...Vanilla Bakeshop, and Sweet Lady Jane's.
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This actually took several tries to figure out which was the best, but in the end, I had to rule in favor of Sweet Lady Jane's.
Not only was the presentation above and beyond Vanilla Bakeshop, the frosting is literally UNLIKE anything I've ever tasted. 2008's winner: SWEET LADY JANE's!
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As a final note, I did have to give special mention to The Farm.
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This little cupcake was REALLY clever! If it wasn't for the fact that fondant tastes NASTY, this guy might have won on looks alone!
This year, MF and I have planned a route that will bypass some of last year's stops, and rotate in a few new contenders. Will anyone have the chops to stop Sweet Lady Jane's from another win?
As my friend Joe Black would say, "It's Cake Time in Spooky Town!"
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As an added bonus, here are a few extra shots from our day of cupcake hunting...
Some of THEE's more exiting looking pumpkins...
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A cool leaf that was on my windshield when we got back from Sprinkles...
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And Asian children trick-or-treating through the Grove at noon.
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What?
